


Somebody That I Used to Know

by CelticInTheAU



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, Episode: s02e01 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, M/M, semi-song fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-11
Updated: 2012-08-11
Packaged: 2017-11-11 21:25:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/483047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelticInTheAU/pseuds/CelticInTheAU
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Ianto could think about while Jack was away was their relationship. Whether they actually had one, and what it would mean when Jack eventually returned. He realized that he didn't know that much about Jack, but once the enigmatic captain does return, Ianto sees the truth, and realizes that Jack is somebody Ianto used to know...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somebody That I Used to Know

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Takes place at the very start of season two, and is mostly AU. It follows the events of “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” for the most part, but some dialogue, and the obvious theme of the particular episode has been changed. The idea has probably been done before, but the song’s stuck in my head, and won’t leave me as long as I also have Janto on the brain. It’s very skippy, but hopefully it’s still readable. If it’s too bad, I shall take it down and endeavour to re-write it a lot better than it currently is. Forgiveness is asked as I haven’t written for this fandom since 2008, at least.  
> Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood (RTD), the song “Somebody I Used To Know” (Gotye), John Barrowman or Gareth David-Lloyd, though if I owned the last two…

It had been three months; three long, gruelling months of having to work within Torchwood Three without a leader. Every day was a fight for leadership between two of the four remaining members. Dr. Owen Harper, the current second-in-command of Torchwood Three, believed that the rights to tell people what should happen and delegates tasks to his team-mates should fall to him. But then there was ex-PC Gwen Cooper, the head-strong, so called “heart” of Torchwood. Just because she thought that she was better than everyone else, and that she and the actual leader, Captain Jack Harkness, had a special connection, she was adamant that second-in-command was actually her role to fulfil.

The final two members, Toshiko Sato and Ianto Jones, couldn’t care less about who was leading them, as long as they continued on with their jobs of keeping Cardiff safe from alien threats and protected the world from any form of artefact that fell through the rift.  But there were other reasons for the two remaining silent. Ianto was too caught up in what had happened to the Captain; trying to figure out exactly where he disappeared to, and why no one could contact him.

Jack had always made it so that the team could reach him when a work-related problem arose. He extended the invitation further to Ianto when they started their fling, stating that he could contact the enigmatic Captain whenever he needed to, for whatever purpose his heart desired. No wonder Ianto was more worried than ever when all of his attempts at communicating with – what was Jack to him? A lover? A friend who he occasionally slept with? – with the Captain ended with a dial tone, or text messages going unanswered.

Tosh, on the other hand, wasn’t worried about Jack. Well, not directly anyway. She was more worried about the effect his disappearance had on her best friend. She had watched how Ianto had slowly slipped back into himself, acting much like he was directly after Lisa’s death. However, Tosh would never outwardly state her concerns, for fear of what Gwen and Owen might say. The two had never been that kind to Ianto, and definitely not supportive of the semi-relationship he shared with their boss.

_“Now and then I think of when we were together.”_

Running around, playing naked hide and seek – which he still swore Jack cheated at; feeding Myfanwy together; going through the paperwork that the captain hated to complete so much, but enjoyed doing with Ianto as they exchanged kisses with each complete page; he couldn’t help but remember the times when it was just him and Jack, after hours in the hub, enjoying each other’s presence rather than doing any form of work. Ianto let out a deep sigh, drawing the attention of his other team mates, who went on to ignore him. Well, all but Tosh, who got up from her workstation and moved over to her friend, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“He will come back, Ianto.”

Ianto sighed and dropped his head slightly; he tried his hardest to form the words he needed to reply to Tosh’s overestimation of their Captain’s reliability. But before he could consider exactly what he wanted to say, the Rift alert went off. Tosh returned to her workstation and began frantically tapping at the keyboard, looking into why the warning came through, and whether it was rift junk, artefacts, or an alien. She hacked into the traffic camera network, seeing that something that look decidedly alien had stolen a car, and was tearing up the streets of the city, as if it was made for that.

“We have a visitor,” she concluded, before transferring the data to her PDA as she grabbed her gun and coat, following Owen, Gwen and Ianto out through the door and to the garage.

_“Told myself that you were right for me, but felt so lonely in your company.”_  

The visitor turned out to be a walking blowfish. At least, that’s what Owen called it when he first caught sight of the creature. In all actuality, it was a humanoid with the head of a blowfish. The potentially laughable matter was that he was doped up on cocaine, something that amused the team, but also frustrated them more, as the drugs seemed to make the creature just that little more evasive.

A chase through the streets of Cardiff ended up with Owen blowing one of the tires, and the creature retreating into a nearby residence, and holding the family there hostage.  Ianto was too scared to shoot, for fear of hitting the human it held captive, but the issue of his fear was resolved when Jack came sweeping in, acting like the big-shot hero he believed he was. The fact that he was the hero in this particular situation went unnoticed by the team, more focused on getting the body of the alien in the boot of the SUV, and retcon-ing the family so that no one but the Torchwood employees would have memories of the events of this particular night.

Jack approached the SUV, where Ianto was busy stashing the body of the alien with Owen’s help, and placed his hand gingerly on the archivist’s shoulder, wanting to talk to Ianto before the rest of the team badgered him about where he had been.

Ianto closed his eyes, the familiar sensation of the electric connection he felt whenever Jack touched him surging through his body. The scent of his pheromones caused his mind to be almost overridden with lust, but he wouldn’t allow himself to fall for it. Too many times in the past had he done just that, and he didn’t want Jack to have that power over him again.

He had thought that, ever since the incident with the fairies when he and Jack first started their fling of sorts, the immortal was exactly what he needed - someone to bring the life back to him after everything that happened with Lisa; somebody for Ianto to care for, somebody to hold him at night when the nightmares of the failed conversion plagued him.

But then the absence of Jack in the last three months hit him. Ianto had nobody to help him through the night terrors, when he would wake up drenched with sweat, trying to keep the bile from rising into his throat. It wasn’t just images of Lisa that plagued him, but images of what Torchwood would be like without the Captain, his mind having been fixated on the memory of Jack, lying pale and still on the slab in the morgue. The moment when he breathed in the lingering pheromones from his military jacket played on repeat at night, and more often than not, though he would never admit to it, Ianto cried himself to sleep. He had already fallen hard for Jack Harkness.

Before Jack had the chance to speak the words he needed to say, he felt as Ianto shrugged his hand from his shoulder, causing a frown to appear on his face.

“We need to get back to the hub, sir,” he heard Ianto mutter before pulling the boot closed and climbing into the SUV.

_“You can get addicted to a certain type of sadness, like resignation to the end is always the end.”_

Once the team got back to the hub, everyone set off for their duties. Owen, with the help of Ianto, moved the body into the autopsy bay, before donning his coat and grabbing the equipment needed to discover just how the blowfish’s anatomy worked. After moving the body of the creature onto the cold metal slab, Ianto went off to the kitchen, to prepare some much needed coffee for the team. The awful joke he made about sushi with Gwen was left hanging in the air, the small smile that appeared on Jack’s face still lingering as he watched the youngest member of the team go about his new duties.

Tosh moved to her workstation, pulling up the rift program and cataloguing the happenings of the evening, making any notes to the specific spikes of energy that could help future arrivals of the blowfish. Gwen, taking her role as not only second-in-command (Owen would still debate over this) and police liaison officer seriously, put in a call to Cardiff PD, speaking with Andy Davidson about protocol should anyone come in questioning the events that took place. Of course, she couldn’t divulge to him just what happened, but after pulling the “Torchwood” card, he went along with her wishes. They kept up a small conversation until he was called away, muttering something about a murder to her before hanging up.

Jack spent the time watching his team, unsure as to whether he should be proud that they were running so smoothly and that there seemed to be no friction between any two members, or whether he should be feeling left out at the fact they seemed to be doing well enough without him there.

The entire time he was away, his thoughts had been on his team, fixated on whether they were getting along okay without him; hell, whether they were still alive was at the forefront of his mind. Knowing how Saxon was treating the Jones family on The Valiant, The Doctor and Jack himself, he was constantly fearing for their lives, especially Ianto’s. The thought that he’d never see his Welshman ever again tore at his heart constantly. But halfway through his time being chained up – at least he thought it was halfway – Jack had found himself questioning whether or not Ianto was his.

But then the question of where he went to came up; a topic he was hoping wouldn’t come up until he had the chance to talk to Ianto alone. It was good that his team was inquisitive, Jack couldn’t deny that, but sometimes they needed to know when to know their places, especially when it came to personal issues; _especially_ those personal issues of Jack’s.

“Where were you?”

Jack had to pay close attention to what Tosh was saying, she was speaking that quietly. He let out a sigh and rubbed the bridge of his nose, watching as everyone soon turned their attention on him. He hated being singled out like this; wherever he went in time and space, he was always caught up in revealing questions, which he never knew the answer to.

“I found my doctor,” he stated once everyone had gathered around him.

“Did he fix you?” Owen asked as he crossed his arms over his chest, wanting to know the answer, but also wanting to shield the Welshman in the room away from the more-than-likely hurtful answer that would leave Jack’s lips.

To the outside world, Owen would deny ever caring for Ianto, but between the two of them, Ianto and Owen both knew how much their relationship – purely platonic – had grown during the time of Jack’s disappearance. The Londoner gave support that Tosh couldn’t give Ianto, and was another person the Welshman could rely on if things appeared to be getting too tough.

“What’s to fix?” Jack started with a smirk, and Owen rolled his eyes. “You don’t mess with this level of perfection.”

“Are you going back to him?” The words that had already been spoken had managed to hurt Ianto, but he knew that Jack’s next answer would definitely hurt him. He could feel the tears brimming in his eyes already, and as he lifted his face to watch Jack, he saw apology in Jack’s eyes as they met his.

“I came back for you.” Jack broke his gaze from Ianto, not sure if the team were privy to that part of Ianto’s private life. He scanned the rest of the team, meeting each of their eyes as he tacked onto the end, “all of you.”

_“But you didn’t have to cut me off. Make out like it never happened and that we were nothing.”_

Those three words tacked onto the end were enough for Ianto. Without a word, he turned around and left the room, heading for the archives, the one place he knew no one would set foot into. As soon as he was out of eyesight and earshot of the team, he let the tears fall and the growing sob free, trying his hardest not to collapse against the wall.

Ianto paused for a moment, trying to compose himself enough to make it down to the archives in one piece. As he got his breathing under control, and wiped his cheeks with the back of his hand, Ianto straightened his tie before continuing down to the dark recesses of the archives held beneath the main hub, hoping sorting through some horrendously catalogued artefacts could help remove him from the funk brought on by Jack.

_“But you treat me like a stranger and that feels so rough. No, you didn’t have to stoop so low.”_

Not even an hour later, Ianto was being asked to return to the main hub, as there was another burst of rift activity that Tosh had picked up on her computer. The co-ordinates ended up being at some parking garage on the outskirts of Cardiff, and the rift spike only lasted a few moments, but Jack, now back in control of the team, decided he wanted to check it out.

Soon enough, Jack had everyone piling into the SUV and bringing up the various monitors and scanning equipment as Jack drove in the direction of the latest spike. Who knew the night of his return would be so eventful? All he wanted to do was greet the team and get his Welshman naked and in bed.

As Jack drove to the scene, Ianto sat in the back of the SUV, his mind running a thousand miles a minute as he continued to process everything that had happened in the last few hours. _It seems I’ve only just gotten my head on straight,_ Ianto mused as he tuned out the sounds of Gwen and Tosh relaying information to Jack as it came through on the computers. _Why did he have to come back now?_

It didn’t take long for them to get to their destination, which meant Ianto didn’t have too much time to ponder on his thoughts. As soon as they clambered out of the car, they were accosted by PC Andy, who parted with information that the team, of course, already knew. Gwen was left to deal with her old partner as the rest of the team examined the body, an attempt at playful banter trying to come from Jack.

Soon they had cleared the scene, having deduced what took place, but as Jack reached for the drivers-side door, his wrist strap let off a soft beep, causing Ianto to turn to Jack with a sombre look on his face, having been the only one to hear it.

“That thing _never_ beeps,” he stated, glancing between the wrist strap and Jack’s face. _Let’s see what kind of lie he pulls up this time._

“That’s what I was thinking.”

Ianto wanted to roll his eyes at the captain’s blasé dismissal of Ianto’s words, obviously hoping that no one else would have caught the sound. However, the rest of the team soon gathered around Jack, and the looks on their faces were practically begging for Jack to press the correct button. 

Jack sighed and pressed a button, aiming his wrist towards an empty space, and everyone around him gasped as a life-sized hologram soon filled the area.

“I can’t believe I got the answer machine… what can you be doing that’s more important than me? Anyway, you’ve probably traced the energy shift… found the body. All me; sorry about the mess. Bill me for the clean-up. Now… drinks! Retrolock the transmission coordinated, that’s where I am. And hurry up; work to do.” After a beat, the holographic image smiled, before speaking in a higher pitched voice. “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.”

“Really?” Owen snorted as the hologram disappeared. The doctor turned his face to look at Jack more directly, a smirk clear on his lips. “Do all your friends think that _Star Wars_ is part of Earth’s history, literally?”

Jack glared at Owen, not appreciating the doctor’s dry humour at that particular moment in time – not that he ever truly cared for his snarky personality, but what the Londoner didn’t know, couldn’t hurt him. 

_“Now you’re just somebody that I used to know.”_

“Stay here; don’t come after me.” Jack spoke with finality, and the tone made Ianto’s heart clench. Whoever the man was in the hologram, it was someone whom Jack wanted to see alone. _Guess I definitely am yesterday’s news._

“Who was that?” Gwen asked, taking a step towards Jack as Tosh came up behind Ianto, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Stay here.” Without another word, the Captain got in the SUV and sped off, leaving four confused team members – one of which who was nursing a broken heart – in his wake, all looking dumbfoundedly at each other, none daring to say anything about the events that just took place.

“Classic Jack,” Owen grumbled, his eyes remaining on the road the SUV just went down. “Swans back in, and then shuts us right back out again.”

Ianto started walking away from the group, lost in his own thoughts. He had planned on going back to The Hub, so he could head off home and drown his sorrows in whatever alcohol he was currently keeping in his apartment, but Tosh’s words caught his attention.

“I can track him.”

Ianto was torn. Did he want to go with the team, and witness something that could, once and for all, destroy his chances at any form of a relationship with Jack Harkness, or did he want to stick with his original plan, and get absolutely hammered and forget his issues, if only for a few hours?

The decision was made for him as Gwen hailed a taxi and grabbed him by the arm, tugging him into the backseat with the rest of the team, before giving the cabbie directions.

_“Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over, but had me believing it was always something that I’d done.”_

As the cabbie brought the team nearer to the coordinates that Jack and the mystery man were meeting at, Ianto was getting deeper into the depression he had found himself sinking into since Jack’s reappearance earlier in the night.

He had thought that once he laid eyes upon the American, the weight he seemed to be carrying around would be lifted. _How fucking wrong was I?_

For some reason completely unknown to Ianto, he was thinking back to the night Lisa was discovered in the basement of The Hub. The memories of how much he screwed up, and how much Jack hated him because of it flooded his mind, and Ianto couldn’t help but wonder why Jack was allowed to be that emphatically upset with a member of the team, but every time Jack did something to truly upset Ianto, he was said to be over-reacting.

Hell, Jack always told him off whenever his emotions got the better of him. It was like Ianto wasn’t allowed to feel, most of the time. _It always comes down to being my fault,_ Ianto thought, but was soon brought out of his sombre musings as Gwen once again grabbed him by the arm, dragging him towards the bar the Captain had been located in.

Owen signalled to everyone to draw their weapons, before they slipped into the building, undetected by the two men currently sitting at the bar. Tosh and Owen took the back entrance, standing just far enough inside the door to be able to watch the two, while Gwen and Ianto took the front door, Gwen just slipping inside, as Ianto kept the front door open with his foot. He didn’t want to witness whatever was happening between Jack and the mystery man, especially because there _was_ a disturbance reported from here.

And of course, whoever the mystery man was, he just _had_ to have some kind of super-sonic hearing, or some alien shit like that, Owen thought, as the four of them were busted, and awkward introductions were made.

“Captain John Hart,” announced the new face, leering almost lecherously at Ianto, causing the Welshman to hide a shiver of disgust.

“We go back,” Jack muttered, frustrated at his team for having disobeyed his orders, and _then_ for getting discovered.

“We more than go back; we were partners.”

Ianto chose that moment to pipe in, making his voice sound as strong as possible, even though he knew the answer would end up hurting him. “In what way?”

“In every way,” John replied smugly, before adding on, “and then some.”

Ianto felt his blood run cold as his mouth shut. It really was true; Jack would whore himself out to anyone if he was desperate enough. Apparently the “anyone” included Ianto himself. He vowed to himself, then and there, that as soon as Captain _fucking_ Hart had moved on, this thing with Jack would stop, once and for all.

_“And I wouldn’t catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know.”_

They were back at The Hub, and John had been disarmed and contained, with Gwen and Owen watching over him. Ianto had hurried down to the archives as soon as the SUV stopped, causing Jack to worry. But he didn’t allow himself to get caught up in the emotions, as he needed to deal with Hart, and make sure he was secured.

As soon as that was done, though, he went to the one place he knew he could find his favourite Welshman. Once he stepped foot into the archives, it was easy to find Ianto. Jack stood just inside the entrance way, watching as Ianto grabbed a pile of paperwork, before heading to the small desk he kept down in the archives, all but collapsing into the chair.

He let out a loud sigh as he rubbed his hands over his face, trying to will his frustrations, his emotions, his depressive thoughts away, knowing he needed to focus on the task at hand. He heard a movement coming from the entrance way, and his head snapped up, his eyes narrowing as he saw the sheepish expression on Jack’s face as the immortal moved properly into the archive area.

“Why?”

Jack didn’t need to ask for a clarification of the question; he knew exactly what Ianto was asking, but he didn’t know how to answer it. He knew that he had hurt Ianto by disappearing, then by suddenly up-and-leaving at the first sight of Hart, but he didn’t want to hurt the younger man any more than he already had.

“I needed answers; answers that only one man could give me…if he knew what they were himself.” Jack moved around Ianto’s desk, perching on the corner as he looked at the younger man, his eyes softening as he saw the obvious pain the Welshman was in.

“Why did you have to desert us? I’m sure it wouldn’t have taken you two minutes to tell one of us where you were going, or write a note, or… _something_.” Ianto’s face was getting redder with every word he spoke, the anger clear in his appearance.

Jack sighed and shifted, resting his hand on Ianto’s shoulder, squeezing gently as he tried to formulate a decent enough answer.

“Where did you go, then? You mentioned your doctor… so where did you go?” Ianto brought one of his hands up, wiping at the tears that had just spilled over his cheeks. His voice became lower as he pleaded with the Captain. “Jack, please… tell me.”

“I have died so many times… been dragged back to life, like being hauled over broken glass. I saw the end of the world.”

“How?” Ianto could see the pain on Jack’s face, and knew that no matter how much his heartache hurt, Jack had seen and felt even more pain than Ianto could ever imagine being witness to.

“Doesn’t matter, now. But after it was all over… I knew I belonged here. What kept me fighting was the thought of coming home to you.”

Their eyes met, and Ianto slowly stood. His heart was telling him to do one thing, while his brain was saying the complete opposite. But in that moment, Jack looked so broken, and Ianto felt so broken, and without giving it any more thought, Ianto leaned in and pressed his lips to Jack’s.

What started off as a soft, comforting kiss, soon morphed into a heated, frenzied clash of mouths, and the two men were grasping at each other’s bodies, trying to shed clothes as they got as close to each other as possible. They both needed this, they couldn’t deny that.

Soon enough, Jack had Ianto naked and laying back on the desk, his hand cupping the Welshman’s cheek as he slowed the frantic movements down. He prepped Ianto with care, all his motions slow and careful, stretching him until the younger man was begging.

“Please, Jack.”

He needed no further invitation. Wrapping Ianto’s legs around his waist, Jack slowly pressed into him, the tightness causing him to hiss. He began shallowly thrusting into Ianto, leaning down to gently kiss him, while taking the other man’s erection into his hand, pumping in time with his thrusts.

They were a mess of whispered cuss words, unspoken love, and carnal need, and both dropped over the precipice together, gently crying each other’s names before relaxing. They both knew that this didn’t change anything between them; that Jack had a lot of making up to do, but it was a start.

“Thank you,” Jack heard Ianto whisper lightly, and he looked down at the Welshman before lightly kissing him.

“For what?”

“For telling me the truth… for changing from that person I used to know, into someone that I know is a better person.”


End file.
